Chief Engineer / Architect

Role Description

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), a component of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), protects the American people, safeguards U.S. borders, and enhances the nation's economic prosperity through innovation, intelligence, and collaboration. Within CBP's Office of Information and Technology (OIT), the Border Enforcement Management Systems Directorate (BEMSD) manages a large, diverse portfolio of mission applications—sustaining legacy systems at high availability while modernizing and developing new solutions. The Systems & Applications Integration & Lifecycle Support (SAILS) program will provide BEMSD with full-lifecycle IT services—from new application development and 24x7x365 operations to legacy modernization—delivered through Agile and DevSecOps practices.

GDIT is seeking a Chief Engineer/Architect to support the SAILS program. In this role, you will serve as the senior technical authority for the program, leading the program's technical architecture, modernization roadmap, and technical approach for DevSecOps within CBP's established CI/CD environment. You will partner with program leadership and BEMSD stakeholders to translate mission needs into secure, scalable, integrated solutions while shaping the program's long-term technical strategy.

How You'll Make an Impact

• Lead enterprise architecture and modernization across BEMSD's application portfolio, enabling secure, scalable mission capabilities.
• Guide technical design decisions and ensure architecture standards remain aligned with CBP and DHS requirements.
• Oversee development and maintenance of architecture artifacts, including system interfaces, integration patterns, reference architectures, and technology roadmaps.
• Champion innovation across application development, modernization, and operations to improve mission agility and performance.
• Provide technical leadership to engineering teams across application, cloud, data, and integration domains.
• Partner with BEMSD stakeholders and development teams to translate mission needs into secure, compliant solutions.
• Evaluate and integrate AI, automation, and emerging technologies—including sensor, edge, and field data integration—to enhance mission capabilities.
• Brief BEMSD and GDIT leadership on architectural strategy, risks, tradeoffs, and recommendations.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a technical discipline.
• 15+ years leading enterprise architecture for large-scale federal IT programs.
• Experience leading modernization across complex application portfolios.
• Expertise in legacy modernization, cloud and hybrid architectures.
• Experience with Agile, DevSecOps, CI/CD, and modern software delivery practices.
• Strong executive communication, stakeholder engagement, and leadership skills.
• U.S. citizenship and ability to obtain a CBP Background Investigation.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master's degree in a technical or management discipline.
• Prior DHS, preferably CBP OIT, program experience.
• Experience with Salesforce, ServiceNow, or enterprise BI platforms.
• Experience delivering AI/ML and automation capabilities in federal environments.
• Experience integrating operational data from sensor, edge, or field systems.
• Relevant cloud architecture certifications (e.g., AWS or Azure).

Benefits

• Variety of medical plan options, some with Health Savings Accounts.
• Dental plan options.
• Vision plan.
• 401(k) plan with pre and post-tax contribution options and company match.
• Full flex work weeks where possible.
• Paid time off plans, including vacation, sick and personal time, holidays, paid parental, military, bereavement, and jury duty leave.
• 15 days of paid leave per calendar year for vacations, personal business, and illness.
• 10 paid holidays per year.
• GDIT Paid Family Leave program providing up to 160 hours of paid leave in a rolling 12-month period for eligible employees.
• Short and long-term disability benefits, life, accidental death and dismemberment, personal accident, critical illness, and business travel and accident insurance.

Company Description

We are GDIT. A global technology and professional services company that delivers technology solutions and mission services to every major agency across the U.S. government, defense, and intelligence community. Our 26,000 experts extract the power of technology to create immediate value and deliver solutions at the edge of innovation. We operate across 50+ countries worldwide, offering leading mission-ready capabilities in AI, cloud, cyber, and software development.